And if the general consumption of the population should rise to even half servants’ allowance, or one ounce per head per week, the consumption of tea would reach 97,500,000 lbs. per annum.  And as to what might be used if the taste for it had free scope, some idea may be formed from the fact that the consumption of such people as have found their way from these countries, where the consumption is 1 lb. 9 ozs. per head, to Australia, has there risen to 7 lbs. per head, at which rate the consumption of the United Kingdom would be about 210,000,000 lbs. per annum, and which, even at a 6d. duty, would produce five millions and a half.  There is nothing in the air of Australia to give any especial impulse to tea drinking:  on the contrary; in this comparatively cold, damp climate, people would naturally use a hot beverage more largely than in the dry warm climate of Australia; and, after all, great as the Australian consumption seems, it is scarcely more than a quarter of an ounce per head per week above the allowance to English domestic servants.

The consumption of tea, notwithstanding the dicta of Mr. Montgomery Martin, is destined to a prodigious increase.  Nor is it solely to an increase in the consumption of tea, that we must look to prevent any deficiency in the revenue, as there is no doubt that a reduction in the price of the article would lead to a prodigious increase in the quantity of sugar consumed, especially by the lower classes, who seldom take the one without the other.

It is not, however, merely that they would buy sugar in proportion to the quantity of tea that they consume; the circumstance of a smaller sum being requisite for their weekly stock of tea, would enable them to spend a larger amount in other articles, among which sugar would, undoubtedly, be one of the most important.  The merchant, shipowner, manufacturer, and all connected with the trade between Great Britain and China, are in a position to see the prodigious advantages that such a measure as an extensive reduction of the impost on tea would occasion to the general trade of the country; and the public at large, who are not practically familiar with the subject, only require it to be brought before them in a distinct point of view, when the important results of such a reduction cannot fail to be apparent to them.

Tea is not now within the reach of the poor man.  A person taking tea once a day, will consume about 71/2 lbs. a year.

lbs. 
Say 500,000 persons take tea twice a day, or 15 lbs. a year, is 7,500,000 Say 4,000,000 persons take tea once a day, or 71/2 lbs. a year, is 30,000,000 Say 12,000,000 persons take tea once a week, or 1 lb. a year, is 12,000,000
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49,500,000

Which shows that, at present, only one person out of every sixty can have tea twice a day; one of every seven only once a day; and that out of the remaining 13,500,000 persons, only five millions and a half can procure it once in the week.  The exact state of the case shows that only eight millions of the people of the United Kingdom enjoy the use of tea, leaving the other twenty-two millions excluded.  A Chinese will consume thirty pounds of tea in the year.